Courses That Pose Obstacles to Community College CompletionMatthew Zeidenberg
Davis JenkinsCommunity College Research Center

Marc A. ScottNew York University

Discussions of the barriers to completion in community
colleges have largely focused on student success in introductory college-level
math and English courses, and rightfully so, since these courses are typically
required for degrees. However, there is a much broader range of courses that
also serve as “gatekeepers” in the sense that they are obstacles to completion.

To give you a sense of participants' feedback from Friday's webinar, the following are results from those who responded to several of our polls:
99%
Strongly Agreed or Agreed (68% said Strongly Agreed) that the academic semester
can be used to strengthen the affective precursors to academic
performance,

67%
said the webinar described between 50-100% of their students; and 92% said
between 25-100% of their students when asked: what percentage of students at
your college have we described (when describing student needs),

90%
chose one of the ACE Solutions or All of the Above (66% chose All of the Above)
when asked: what ACE Solutions most likely will help my college strengthen
students' affective precursors to academic performance (ACE solutions included:
ACE Professional Development, ACE Affective-Oriented Curriculum and Materials,
and ACE Affective Measurement Tool).

For those of you who didn't get a chance to attend last week, logged in late, would like a refresher, or know of someone else who would be interested in learning more about this topic, this Precursors to Academic Performance webinar will be split into two 1-hour sessions, allowing us to delve deeper into the subject of precursors. You can learn more and register here or at the links below:1. Precursors to Academic Performance Part 1: Why Affective Learning is Important & How to Measure Affective Precursors Friday, November 30,
2012 from 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM PST
Part
2: Who Benefits from Affective Learning, Friday,
December 7, 2012 from 9 AM - 10 AM PSTIn this FREE two-part webinar, ACE founder Diego Navarro
will discuss the role of the affective or non-cognitive domain in meeting the
needs of developmental education students in higher education and why it is an
important precursor to academic performance. Diego will discuss ACE's
measurement approach and the evidence collected over two years from six
colleges. Register now (for Part 1)! Register now (for Part 2)!

If
you haven't yet had a chance to sign up for the last two webinars in our
Affective Domain Webinar Series, you can learn more and register here or at the links below:

In
this FREE webinar, Navarro will talk about teaching to the affective domain and
what you can do in the classroom to meet the needs of your students. Diego will
also outline the professional development workshops and curriculum ACE has
developed that prepares community college faculty to meet the affective /
non-cognitive needs of community college students. Register now!

In this FREE webinar, Navarro will discuss the need
for an intensive introduction to community college that shifts the students'
mindsets and behaviors towards improved academic performance. He will discuss
curriculum that addresses and evidence that shows shifts in student's affective
factors. Register now!

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Here's an NPR story focused on cultural attitudes with respect what matters in terms of learning: "Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning"
While the term isn't used in the story, in other settings--including last year's math conference here in Washington--Stigler and his colleagues talk about the critical role of "productive persistence" in student learning, and it's been a particular area of focus for the Re-Thinking Precollege Math project, and in particular a small working group focused on Student Attributes for Math Success; this group has developed some classroom resources that math faculty can use to address issues like productive persistence through the design of classroom activities and environments.

A large majority of
UW students feel that reviewing Tegrity lecture capture recordings contributes
to their learning, according to the findings in UW-IT’s just released report.
An assessment, undertaken in Winter and Spring Quarters, aimed to learn how
Tegrity was being used in courses on all three campuses, identify best
practices, uncover any unmet support needs or obstacles, and find out how instructors
and students would like to use Tegrity in the future. Read more.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

MiningData to Help Students
In the second installment of a two-part series, CT examines how pioneering schools are mining
Big Data in hopes of uncovering the ultimate riches: improved student learning
and performance.

VIDEO:
Jeff Borden, VP of instruction and academic strategies at Pearson
eCollege, advises institutions not to worry about perfection in Big Data
collection and analysis—just get started.

Friday, November 9, 2012

It means that instructors are providing online resources (text,
videos, podcasts, quizzes and so forth) for student learning outside of class,
reserving class time for collaborative work, concept mastery and
application, and other higher-level learning.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Real Revolution Is Openness, Clay Shirky Tells Tech Leaders

Denver — Clay Shirky is one of the country’s most prominent Internet thinkers—“a spiritual guide to the wired set,” as The Chronicle Review put it in a 2010 profile of him. In his latest book, Cognitive Surplus, the New York University professor argues that a flowering of creative production will arise as the Internet turns people “from consumers to collaborators.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Shirky took that message to a group of higher-education-technology leaders who have been buffeted by a rapidly evolving ed-tech landscape. Mr. Shirky, in a keynote speech kicking off this year’s Educause conference, explored how technology was changing everything, from research to publishing to studying. (The talk starts about 20 minutes into this link.)Read the full article...

In the game of publishing, consistency beats brilliance.
This does not mean that brilliant ideas do not matter.Who would not love to
develop an innovation in a field that would profoundly affect the lives of
others? Practitioners and faculty in the human services fields want to help. We
want to have impact and change the world. However, it is important that we not
wait until we have a brilliant epiphany before we write. Perhaps brilliant,
transformative ideas are not the only ones that should be written down (and
perhaps these types of ideas only can come about in the context of writing more
routine, ordinary insights). Perhaps the goal should be providing meaningful,
valuable contributions to our professions. Expecting anything more may create
too much pressure and lead to debilitating blocks and limitations. Besides,
more than one brilliant scholar has been denied tenure for not having developed
the practice of writing and so not publishing. To be successful in publishing articles, you need
to develop writing as a practice or discipline.

In this sense, writing is similar to meditation. It is
very hard to meditate well if you only do so once in awhile. Meditating only
when you want to reduce stress may provide some benefits, yet many of the most
powerful effects demand daily practice. When you meditate daily, meditation
becomes integrated into the core of your life. Over time it becomes both easier
and more beneficial. Having a daily meditation practice forces you to be
disciplined, consistent, and focused. Over time, you experience new depths,
insights, and benefits. If you miss more than a day or two, you come to feel as
if something were missing, as if something were not right.

The same is true with writing. When you are out of
practice, the blank sheet is daunting. However, when writing has become a
central part of your life, words and ideas tend to flow, if not effortlessly, at
least more smoothly. Daily or near-daily writing can even become like a
meditation practice, something that takes you out of yourself, connects you to
different parts of your personality, and helps you let go. When writing becomes
a friend, a daily routine, it loses much of its anxiety-producing
qualities.When you do not have to worry whether you will be able to produce
because you already are producing on a consistent basis you are free to
consider what you want to write about and who you want to become as a scholar.
What we are suggesting is that we treat writing as a creative, life-inspiring
practice. This clearly demands an attitude shift for many of us. It is not
enough to wish this relationship into existence: it requires practice and work,
including work on the psychological and
emotional barriers that you identify in yourself. It also can mean learning to
view writing as a vehicle for becoming more fully who you are. For some, this
may be an extreme and unhelpful goal. For those of you who do not wish to see
writing in this almost spiritual light, at the very least you nevertheless will
need to develop a practice of writing.

Developing rituals is a valuable way to create a practice
of writing. Rituals mark the end of one period or event and the beginning of
another. Developing rituals around writing says, "Now I move from this past
activity to writing, which is all I will do with this time." This book-marking
of time will help you view your writing time as something special, and signals
that other activities can wait until you are done with your writing.

Whereas I (Rich) sometimes write in my office at the
college or in cafes during the day, I do my best writing at home, late at
night. I like to write in my oversized leather easy chair. It has a good large
footrest and two very wide stuffed armrests. On each armrest I can place four
or five articles. My laptop fits easily into my lap and my arms rest
comfortably by my side. Before I sit down to work, I brew myself a cup of green
tea (or even pour myself a very small snifter of single malt scotch). I sit in
my chair and drink about half a cup (this would be the tea), savoring the
gentle tastes and aromas. Almost ritualistically, I remind myself how lucky I
am to be able to have this time to write and enjoy my tea. I remind myself that
my goal is to write either one page or for one hour, and anything beyond that
is pure gravy.

We strongly encourage you to develop your own writing
ritual, one that helps you to see writing as an enjoyable and enriching
activity. Try to incorporate objects and experiences that you enjoy into your
writing.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

More than 130 participants from 50
Washington State institutions of higher education (both public and private)
participated in the second annual Prior Learning Assessment workshop, held on November
2, 2012. Participating institutions demonstrated substantial progress and
improvements in PLA awareness and implementation of practices. These
improvements are aimed at helping the state meet the legislative mandate to
increase the number of students receiving PLA credit that applies toward
degrees and certificates, achieve its degree completion goals, reduce the need
for required courses which might be waived for students who earn prior learning
credits, give credit where credit is due for returning military veterans and
other students with prior learning knowledge and skills, and reduce time and
cost to complete certificates and degrees.

A statewide PLA work group has been meeting since June of 2010. Since then, colleges have identified a single point of contact on each campus (completed in fall of 2011), adopted reciprocity agreements to ensure the portability of prior learning credits (completed in spring of 2012), adopted a common coding system to accurately track prior learning credit activity (completed in summer of 2012), and published prior learning assessment information in college class schedules and on college websites (completed in fall of 2012).

In addition, the statewide prior learning workgroup has provided online prior learning assessment resources (ongoing since 2010), created a prior learning handbook for faculty and staff (distributed in fall of 2012), and held two statewide Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) workshops for college and university teams (fall of 2011 and 2012).